I've watched a considerable number of Hallmark Christmas movies this year, whenever I feel I can tolerate their constant ad breaks for diseases and drug warnings. Quite a few have been enjoyable but Christmas Next Door is the worst so far. So bad I'd rate it zero stars if I could. Here we have a famous author who writes about bachelorhood but is very dumb about women coupled with a violin tutor who giggles and laughs after every dull sentence. Oddly, Miss Violinist can afford to live in the same neighborhood as the famous author, who drives a snazzy sportscar to boot. The author has to sleep on the couch when his niece & nephew come to stay because apparently his fancy house has only one bedroom.
All together the boring dialog, nonsensical scene setups, the total lack of any real plot device to separate it from the generic Christmas theme, and the ridiculous character portrayals made me think I was watching what would have been just the outline for any other film. Skip this one - it's very low budget and you'll miss nothing.
Christmas Next Door
2017
Action / Family / Romance
Plot summary
Author Eric Redford (Jesse Metcalfe) feels the Christmas season has been jinked for him ever since the woman he loved declined his marriage proposal by telling him she'd fallen in love with someone else. Having moved into a new neighborhood, he is currently doing his best to dodge his local family Christmas while fending off his pushy next-door neighbor Conrad's attempt to involve him in the neighborhood's holiday decorating. A best-selling author, he is well known for his series of books on the bachelor lifestyle and, as a new book deadline looms, he is in a rut, his heart not in writing a similar book. His mother ends up feigning the flu in order for him to grow out of his "juvenile" phase by spending time with his young niece and nephew, Chelsea and Liam. His mother had been watching them until their parents, Eric's sister and brother-in-law, waited out the snowstorm in Norway closing airports all over northern Europe. With the help of another neighbor, violin teacher April (Fiona Gubelmann),he starts to enjoy that family role. He does have a new girlfriend, Bridget, but when he spots April with a blind date, he realizes his growing affection for her. When Bridget makes it plain, it was bachelor Eric she was interested in, not Uncle Eric, they end their relationship but not before it complicates things between Eric and April. Will his publisher like the new direction of Eric's book or will they cancel his contract? Will Eric give Christmas a chance and convince April of his true feelings before it's too late?
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
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Even for Hallmark, this is a real dud
Frustrating Watch
As a musician, it was really cringeworthy to watch the scenes featuring violin playing. They made no effort to even pretend to she was a violinist. I would hope that the story is at least a little believable. Further, I found the dialogue to be poorly written, awkward, and uninteresting.
Cute Holiday Film!
This was a pretty good Christmas movie, even in spite of a few minor details that bugged me. The chemistry between the leads was believable, and the script was actually decent. Fiona, the actress who played April, was adorable and charming. I had a harder time with Jesse Metcalfe, as I thought he was still a child before I looked him up and discovered he is only a few days younger than me. He played his bachelor role perfectly.
As for the negatives, I just wish they would have dubbed in a better violinist, and that the actress would have at least attempted to make it look like she was actually playing it. Also, what are these houses made of that he can be sitting in his study two houses away and hear her playing the violin loud enough that he's distracted? Or that when he turns his music up, it's loud enough to disrupt a music lesson with her student? Yet she couldn't hear a conversation between him and his ex-girlfriend in a super quiet evening from feet away? Okay.
All in all, I recommend watching it. It contains everything you expect from a Hallmark movie.